G. Footit was born in 1938 in Toronto, Ontario. Toronto, the capital of the province of Ontario, was the setting of his early life and of his later professional career.
His origins in a major Canadian city placed him within the provincial center of Ontario's legal and commercial life, where the University of Toronto and the province's legal profession were both established institutions.
Footit studied at the University of Toronto, where he earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree. The university was founded as King's College by royal charter in 1827, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada. It was secularized in 1849 and took the name University of Toronto in 1850, after which it developed into one of Canada's largest public research universities.
A Bachelor of Commerce programme combined business and economic study with a university education, preparing graduates for careers in commerce, finance, and administration before he entered the legal profession.
Footit was admitted to the bar in Ontario in 1966, which qualified him to practise law in that Canadian province. Admission to the bar was the formal entry point into the legal profession in Ontario.
He later worked as a partner of the firm Members. In Canadian law firms, partners are senior lawyers who share in the ownership and management of the practice alongside their legal work.
